This presentation focuses on the “gig-economy” and the implications for the labour market and growth. It discusses how we currently understand the gig economy, the terminology used to describe it, what we know about the number of works engaged in this type of work, signs of flexibility and vulnerability and considers what comes next.

1. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
‘Gig’ economy: Implications for
labour markets and growth
Steven Tobin
Executive Director, LMIC
June 1, 2018

2. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Known (almost) knowns: Making sense of vast
terminologies
Platform economy/gig economy/digital platform/transaction platforms:
1. Local service providers (‘work on demand via apps’) where work
is dispatched through apps (Task Rabbit, Uber, Deliveroo)
2. Online crowd-working platforms (‘crowd work’): work is posted to
the crowd but can be conducted anywhere.
i. Micro-task platforms: Amazon Mechanical Turk, Clickworker
ii. Macro-task platforms: More highly skilled/freelance; workers negotiate prices
3. Lines are often blurred

3. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Known unknowns
1. Number of workers in “gig” economy?
• Global: Some estimates put it at 20m-75m (bulk in emerging
countries) (Smith and Leberstein, 2015; Codagnone, et al., 2016;
Heeks, 2017)
• Canada?
2. Conditions of work?: Limited + mixed
Flexibility/
Autonomy
Vulnerability

4. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Signs of flexibility?
• 75% of workers would like to start working, or more frequently
work, from home (Deloitte Millennial Survey, 2016)
• 87% of “knowledge workers” say choosing where and when to
work is important (Fuze, 2018)
• 20% say their preference to work from home is the main reason to
crowd work (ILO, 2016)

5. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Signs of vulnerability?
• Income volatility associated with irregular/unpredictable hours of
work (Common Cents Lab, 2018; Lewchuk et al., 2015)
• 25% to 45% primarily use platforms to supplement income from
other sources (ILO, 2016)
• Hourly employees were willing to forego an average of 12% of
income to have regular schedules (Common Cents Lab, 2018)
• 60% of crowd workers cited a lack of work as the reason they don’t
put in more hours (ILO, 2016)

6. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Balancing out? No!
• Evidence is mostly anecdotal/survey sampling is questionable
• You can’t measure what you can’t define/more difficult to measure
something that’s invisible
• “Gig work” is part of a broader phenomena: casualization of work and
the spread of non-standard forms of employment (ILO, 2015)
• 250m workers with NO contract
• 380m with temporary contract
• 700m own-account
• Not a zero sum game: Flexibility/
Autonomy
Vulnerability

7. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Why we should be worried about new forms of work?
• Social protection system is built on full-time, regular employment model
• Limited or no opportunities to protect/defend worker rights
• Wage penalties (on whole): raises concerns about “equal pay for work
of equal value” as well as inequality (impact on growth, social cohesion)
and distribution between capital and labour
• No/limited access to training and upskilling

8. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
What to do and not do
Labour market information
1. Let’s not try and define “gig workers” – takes too long to agree
upon, would be difficult to understand and world would have
changed in mean time
2. Rather: Capture a broader term for new forms of employment
(something we do not do) and conditions of “work” now
3. Ask questions to individuals: a) voluntary or not, and b) if so, why?
(traditional questions in EULFS)

9. LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
What to do and not do
Institutional
1. Not to promote full-time permanent as the solution
2. Adapt social protection systems: Easier said than done (but it has
been done) and likely easier than a new system
3. Experiment with individual learning accounts as means to ensure
access to training (concerns about placing burden on individual)
4. Effective employment regulations: Move towards deregulation in an
effort to promote job growth is having/has had
unintended/counter-productive consequences